Epilogue: D.O.A. (Delight on Arrival)

This manuscript is both a memoir of sorts and a work of fiction.  The stories and events included are based on my life experiences and memories but I have changed names, details, event sequences, and outcomes throughout the work.

Read Chapter 1       Previous Chapter

Epilogue: D.O.A. (Delight on Arrival)

Spring was almost a week old. This year the season seemed to want to show up on time, and the weather was unseasonably warm for the end of March. Elizabeth had been rejoicing and embracing the new season as it unfolded day by day. She found herself awakening earlier each morning, looking forward to being outside and enjoying the pleasures of the day.

This morning, Elizabeth had arisen with Vincent and sent him off to work before the sun was fully up. That was not unusual, but usually she would return to bed so she could sleep a few more hours. But today she had stayed up. She had already written her morning pages, posted her mandala, checked her emails, and was busy preparing her breakfast. She had been amazed at all the energy she seemed to have discovered now that spring was making itself felt.

Finishing her breakfast, she decided to take a few moments to sit as she was accustomed to do now. She positioned herself in her “sitting” chair and focused on her breathing. She noticed that her thoughts were anticipating the day. Since she had been practicing her sitting time more diligently, she found she was able to bring her focus back to her breathing more easily. At one point, though, she began to feel that she really needed to get going, that it was time for her to get outside. She continued the refocusing process, but this feeling emanating from inside of her would not be refocused. Finally, she couldn't ignore the feeling any longer and prepared herself to greet the day. Because of the warmer weather, she wouldn't need to put on the many winter layers and her heavy coat, and she was ready to leave in just a few minutes.

As Elizabeth stepped outside of the apartment building, she breathed in the still chilly but fresh spring air. She smiled as she thought, “Unseasonably warm doesn't mean warm; it just means warmer than it normally would be at this time of the year.” She stood on the step and looked around. 

Elizabeth noticed that almost all of the trees were still in hibernation mode with their dark stick-like branches and no greenery in sight. Any leaves that clung to the trees and brushes were last year's memories, brown and lifeless, not realizing that they were supposed to have let go of the tree or bush in the autumn or at least during the winter snows. Elizabeth thought how like her those leaves were. She, too, clung to memories, not letting go of the old feelings and the interpretations she had assigned to past experiences. She noticed, once again, how the world was being her mirror, showing her what she needed to see so she could remember who she really was and live her life more fully, flowing in the magic of Life, Love, All That Is.

Elizabeth turned to begin her walk and she heard a sound, a sound she hadn't heard in quite a while. She listened carefully and off in the distance she heard the faint cries of birds. She felt her excitement mount as the cries got louder and louder. She scanned the sky and soon she saw them: a flock of geese forming a perfect V stretching out in the deep blue of the spring sky, calling out to encourage one another, knowing that they soon would be home to begin the cycle of rebirth and renewal.

The joy and delight she felt at being given the opportunity to see her old friends' arrival was indescribable. As she continued to watch their flight, Elizabeth noticed that the point of the flock's V in the sky seemed to be aiming toward her. She felt as if their cries included her, encouraging her to understand the message they were bringing that she, like them, had always been and would always be in the eternal flow of magic. No search was necessary; for like Rumi's necklace, the magic she sought was already where she stood, where she lived, where she was. All she had to do was open her heart, embrace all of Life, and let the magic flow.

Elizabeth watched until she could no longer see the geese. She wished them well and hoped that she would see them depart in the fall. Nevertheless, she knew as she stepped onto the sidewalk, her “pieces of magic” days were behind her. Along with the flock of wild geese on the wing, a new awareness of the flow of magic had arrived, bringing with it a new cycle of rebirth and renewal for her life journey and an anticipation of new experiences and delights.

Copyright © 2011-2012 by Vicky Lynn Macchione.
All Rights Reserved.
No reproduction of this text is allowed without the written permission of the author.

Chapter 20: Dreams Asleep, Dreams Awake (Part 2)

This manuscript is both a memoir of sorts and a work of fiction.  The stories and events included are based on my life experiences and memories but I have changed names, details, event sequences, and outcomes throughout the work.

Read Chapter 1       Previous Chapter       Next Chapter

Chapter 20: Dreams Asleep, Dreams Awake (Part 2)

Elizabeth believed that illusion was what both waking and sleeping dreams had in common. Thinking back to her art analogy about the canvas and the actual painting floating above, she could see how whether waking or sleeping, dreams were like the paintings—all were illusions when looked at from the eternal perspective of the Universe.

When in a contemplative state, Elizabeth could see everyone's thoughts and actions as layers upon layers of illusions added onto the background of All That Is—that Being-ness containing everything and everyone. A perfect example was when she went to see a movie or watched television. She would watch images on a screen (another allusion to All That Is) that recounted a story that was simply a projected illusion. And the people portraying the cast in the illusions were themselves people, whose lives like hers, were thought paintings that never adhered or altered the canvas of All That Is, but merely floated above or lay on it as if on a plastic film. Both the stories on film (the movie) and the floating paintings (“real life”) had the same fragile and illusive quality as dreaming. Most human beings, though, would argue that only the film stories were dream-like. They believed that their lives—full of emotions, thoughts, physical manifestations, and spiritual awareness—represented reality (the capital R reality), the only tangible reality there was. “Without our life stories,” Elizabeth wondered, “who would we be?” A question she was sure many people had considered.

Elizabeth recalled a period of time where she had entertained the idea that God/Source/the Universe was dreaming everything that existed. She had struggled with the idea because of the way she felt about people and places in her own sleeping dreams. When she awoke from a dream, she did not concern herself with her dream images. They were simply figments of her thoughts and imagination. If she had dreamed about someone she knew, she might think about or call the person when she awoke. But there was always a part of her that would say, “It was just a dream. They are fine. What happened was only in your mind not in the real world.”  When Elizabeth extended this idea to God-dreaming-the-world, she realized that when God awoke, all the world would cease to exist, just as her dream world ceased to exist when she awoke each morning. Elizabeth attempted to understand how her life would make sense or have purpose if God were dreaming her and imagining the events that occurred. Even trying to put words to the idea was a challenge for her.

Elizabeth had also considered the idea that God was dreaming the world to experience every possible emotion and situation that could or would ever exist. She struggled with this scenario because God became arbitrary, having little or no concern about the dream characters as individuals, but only interested in his/her own desires. Elizabeth could not conceive of a God so absorbed with experiences that he/she had no attachment to the fact that his/her need was creating painful and unthinkable situations for the characters being dreamed.

The God-dreaming-the-world scenario made Elizabeth feel fearful. She could see that her only importance and worth in the dream were her experiences. She herself had no real identity or substance since in the dreamer's (God's) waking reality, she did not exist. The irony was that God-dreaming-the-world demonstrated clearly that everyone and everything was part of a dream, an illusion by definition! Eventually, Elizabeth had abandoned the idea because God having a lack which would result in a desire was contradictory to the concept and definition of God being All That Is.

The main difference between understanding that All That Is exists as the essence of Life and God-dreaming-the-world was the value and worth of everyone and everything. In the first scenario, Love is the only truth and the one rule of existence. This immeasurable Love becomes the sea in which individual droplets of All That Is imagined Itself, created Itself, and lived Itself as Life. Each droplet is important and valuable to the oneness and wholeness of All That Is. In the second scenario, love is simply another experience, a partial fulfilling of the desire to know and experience all. Only experiences are worthwhile: The dream characters have no value to the dreamer other than how they can be used and manipulated to provide the needed experiences. Everyone and everything become tokens or pawns to be maneuvered and arranged for the dreamer's pleasure in the dream of Life. The idea of manipulation and using everyone and everything to fulfill what seemed to be a selfish desire was one that did not fit with Elizabeth's concept of God/Source/the Universe/All That Is.

Elizabeth relaxed her mind and let her thoughts wander. Thinking about God-dreaming-the-world reminded her of when her father used to tell her that she needed to come out of her dream world. She was a teenager at the time, and although she couldn't remember what triggered that comment, she knew she had heard it repeatedly. Perhaps the dream world about which her father was speaking had to do with Elizabeth's teen-aged idealism, her particular belief system about the world, or her daydreams about life. She hated that her father had admonished her that way during the time of life when one is supposed to be dreaming about the future and what possibilities lay ahead. She realized that her father most likely had the best of intentions in his warning. He may have been trying to get her to look at life more realistically and not through the lens of youthful ideals. But Elizabeth embraced the idea of looking at life realistically soon enough and spent most of her adult life doing just that. She would often add the term when she was disparaging herself or denigrating her lack of discipline: “I am just looking at life, at myself, realistically.”

Nowadays, Elizabeth wished that she could embrace and incorporate the excitement and adventure of her teen-aged dream world into her current life. That fresh perspective of new ideas, abundant possibilities, and an open-armed acceptance of life's offerings would invite magic into her daily life. How could she make that happen? What part did her sleeping dreams and waking dreams play in the unfolding of her life and her desire to see the flow of magic? If she spent time interpreting her daily life as a dream, could that make a difference?

Elizabeth looked at the clock and realized that she had spent over an hour lost in her thoughts about dreams. It was time to enter the dream of today and see what she could discover and learn about magic's flow in her imagined world.

Copyright © 2011-2012 by Vicky Lynn Macchione.
All Rights Reserved.
No reproduction of this text is allowed without the written permission of the author.

Chapter 15: Vincent, A Love Story

This manuscript is both a memoir of sorts and a work of fiction.  The stories and events included are based on my life experiences and memories but I have changed names, details, event sequences, and outcomes throughout the work.

Read Chapter 1       Previous Chapter       Next Chapter

Chapter 15: Vincent, A Love Story

Elizabeth always found it unusual that Vincent would choose a woman who was larger than he was. Of course, he was fairly thin for a man, so finding a woman his size or smaller would have been a challenge. The difference in their weights was only one of the opposites that made up their relationship. There was the age difference—Vincent being more than twenty years younger than Elizabeth. There was the language difference—Vincent's first language was French and Elizabeth's was English. There was the perspective difference—Vincent believed himself to be magnificent and saw life as an adventure with mostly positive outcomes. Elizabeth saw herself as "crap" (Vincent's descriptor of the attitude she had about herself) and viewed life as a fearful forest full of dangers and pitfalls she had to guard against and to overcome. ("With that point of view, is it any wonder that I only see pieces of magic in my life?" Elizabeth wondered to herself.) There was the country difference—Vincent coming from the only province in Canada that believed itself a nation; Elizabeth coming from what some considered the country (nation) with the most opportunities and riches—the United State of America. So many differences and yet they had been together for more than a decade.

Elizabeth thought back to their first meeting. Unlike most people who meet in person, she and Vincent had met online in a chat room dedicated to Spirituality. (Currently, the online chat rooms were determined by the messenger service; in the past, people could create rooms dedicated to a particular subject.) They met one Saturday and started chatting. During those first few conversations, they decided to email each other. Actually, Elizabeth asked Vincent if he wanted to exchange email addresses. He wasn't sure, though, because he thought that one person might email and then the other wouldn't reply. But eventually he relented and they started emailing one another.

Between the meetings in the online chat room and the emails going back and forth, Elizabeth and Vincent started a friendship. In the beginning, Vincent was actually trying to help Elizabeth with her marriage. She would talk with him about her husband and about the change in the love she was feeling toward him, a love of respect for him as a person and a father but not necessarily the love for a husband and a lover. Vincent tried to help her by talking with her about his own challenges with finding a relationship that could last. His current girlfriend was already pulling away from him emotionally, not really giving their relationship a chance to grow and bloom. Over the next several months, the two online friends would share their disillusionment with love as it was occurring in their respective lives and their belief that a relationship could be a living, growing, organic dance of love and mutual agreement between two people. Eventually, each experienced a dissolution of their relationships: Elizabeth divorced her husband and Vincent's girlfriend walked away from their relationship. 

Elizabeth and Vincent's friendship continued and, subsequently, became something more. Elizabeth remembered clearly when it changed. During one of their weekly chat sessions, Elizabeth mentioned how she lacked confidence in herself. In the chat box, Vincent had described himself as scooting over and whispering in her ear, saying, "Why don't you have confidence in yourself?" Elizabeth smiled and tried to explain how she always felt inadequate and so lacked confidence with others. Their online conversation continued and at some point Vincent wrote a special message next to his online name: thisnorthernfellow: loves you. Elizabeth felt like time stood still and she could hardly breathe. She wasn't sure if he meant the universal love people have for other people or if he meant romantic love. It quickly became clear that Vincent had found the love he was looking for in Elizabeth. Elizabeth already believed that she loved Vincent but never thought that a younger man would be interested in a divorced woman in her mid-forties.

The two decided they should meet. Elizabeth made plans to visit Vincent, planning to stay for one week. Fortunately, she still had vacation time remaining. She bought the round-trip airplane ticket, made arrangements for her older daughter to stay with her 16-year-old daughter, and prepared for the trip. 

Elizabeth recalled that the trip had been a series of "firsts" for her—her first airplane flight, her first visit to another country, and her first meeting with Vincent. Her daughters accompanied her to the airport when the day of the trip arrived. Elizabeth could still feel the excitement and anticipation as the plane took off. She had mentioned to the woman sitting next to her that she had never flown on an airplane before. Elizabeth was unaware that the woman had reported that fact to the stewardess. When the plane landed in the connecting city, the stewardess presented Elizabeth with a pair of wings to commemorate her first flight. What a magical occurrence!

Elizabeth arrived in Vincent's country that evening. She emerged from customs and there was Vincent waiting to greet her. He kissed her on both cheeks, the customary French greeting, and they walked outside to catch the shuttle to the hotel she had booked for the first night. Although she was wearing a winter coat, she didn't have it zipped up. When they got outside, she was startled by how cold it was. She was nervous and had a difficult time zipping her coat. Vincent helped her. Their eyes met. In that instant, a breathless Elizabeth knew that she was completely captivated by the man standing in front of her. She felt her heart jump with excitement as she realized, “I am deeply in love with this man!”

Every day of that first visit with Vincent was amazing. He showed her around his city. She loved everything he showed her. They spent many hours walking, talking, and enjoying each other's company. They also traveled to one of the most charming cities Elizabeth had ever seen in her life. After a day of walking around and seeing that city's sights, they spent the night in a delightful, old world hotel. (That visit had had such an impact on Elizabeth that every year since, Vincent and she had made a trip to that city in the autumn to celebrate their first meeting.)

The week quickly came to an end and soon Elizabeth was saying goodbye to Vincent at the airport. Her heart felt heavy and she whispered to Vincent, "Please don't forget me." Vincent took off a silver ring he always wore, an ankh, and gave it to her. Vincent believed the ankh represented eternal life and gave it to Elizabeth as a symbol of their love and their eternal life together. Elizabeth gave him a ring she had bought just for the trip, a silver ring with a heart-shaped setting holding a rose quartz stone. Elizabeth had chosen the ring because rose quartz stood for love and self-worth. Giving it to Vincent symbolized her trust in him and their growing love. They made a pact right then to chat every evening until the day they were together again, despite the challenge of the three-hour time difference. As tears filled her eyes and love overwhelmed her heart, Elizabeth kissed Vincent for the last time before she boarded the plane. Looking back, Elizabeth had not been aware the extent to which her life would change after that momentous visit.

When considering her years with Vincent, Elizabeth always thought about how he made an effort to differentiate between who she really was—the eternal God spark—and what she did or how she acted. He would tell her, especially in their first years together, what a magnificent being she was, which was not based on her appearance or her behavior or what she thought about herself. This foundational point of view was why he never had had problems with their age difference. He saw each of them as the same age: eternal.

Vincent also had a unique perspective on disagreements and conflicts. As they began their life together, he had wanted them to make a particular commitment to each other: Each agreed to make the effort to believe that no matter what the other person did or said, the resulting actions or words were never meant as an intent to wound. Vincent was better at the agreement than Elizabeth. She had more trouble detaching from words and actions when she was in the heat of an argument. She noticed, too, that as the years went by, both of them had had moments where they had forgotten that agreement. Fortunately, situations would come up that would remind them how much they loved each other and how neither one would ever intentionally want to cause harm or distress to the other.

Elizabeth had thought Vincent's ideas about relationships were quite unusual for a man of his age. Even though he didn't believe in marriage, he did believe in commitment and staying true to the person with whom you were in relationship. He often told Elizabeth that their marriage was a secret ceremony occurring between their two hearts, witnessed by God, and sealed by their love. “How romantic!” she thought.

Elizabeth smiled as she remembered Vincent's thoughtfulness throughout the years. In their first year living together in his country, he had gone to a florist shop and brought her home a pot full of daffodils just because he knew she loved them. (At the time, he was in a job that didn't pay much, which made the gift even more memorable and amazing.) A few years ago, when she had broken her ankle and had been housebound for close to six weeks, he rented a car and took her on a surprise outing to a particular movie theater that would be easy for her to access even though she was still on crutches. And later that same year, he had surprised her with a trip to a mountain park where there was a large telescope opened to the public. Vincent knew how much she loved the stars and all the wonders of space. He was able to keep the destination secret until they had almost arrived. Elizabeth was so impressed and touched that he made such efforts to please her.

Vincent's most recent surprise was a special gift for her birthday. While Elizabeth had always been a person who made a fuss about birthdays, Vincent had never been one to celebrate his or anyone else's birthday. Elizabeth had tried to get Vincent to change his attitude by demanding that he remember her birthday with some special card and gift. Unfortunately, that change hadn't occurred. (Elizabeth had experienced many other disappointments at birthday time because no one could ever live up to her high expectations of what constituted an acceptable birthday celebration.) Elizabeth had decided that this year, she just wouldn't expect anything and limit the celebration to a cake bought from a local bakery. 

The actual celebration took place a week early since Vincent and Elizabeth were traveling to visit her children the day after her birthday. Earlier in the week a parcel had arrived addressed to Vincent. Elizabeth didn't know what was inside but noticed a name on the customs slip and did a quick Internet search. (She possessed a detective-sized curiosity streak.) She found a web site where a woman constructed handmade nests with different types of birds in them, and Elizabeth knew that Vincent had bought her a present for her birthday. She was ecstatic! 

Elizabeth told Vincent about finding the site and told him thank you, even though she still didn't know exactly was in the package. Vincent was slightly disappointed with Elizabeth because of her insatiable curiosity, but he knew that she would be surprised by which birds he had chosen.

On the day chosen for her birthday celebration, Elizabeth and Vincent walked to a nearby bakery to pickup the cake and then stopped for a light supper at a small sushi restaurant on the same street. The dinner was perfect and Elizabeth really enjoyed her time with Vincent. When they arrived home, Vincent got the cake ready by adding candles while Elizabeth got out the plates. Vincent sang a French birthday song as well as the old standby “Happy Birthday to You.” Elizabeth blew out the candles, anticipating the gift that was sitting close by on the table.

After the cake was served, Elizabeth opened her gift. Inside she found a tiny nest, which was the home to two tiny bald eagles. Elizabeth was touched and enthralled as she placed the nest on the palm of her hand, looking at the two eagles nestled comfortably in their tiny abode. Vincent said the eagles were like the two of them, cozy and snuggled together in their apartment and their life. 

Vincent had gotten the idea for this wonderful gift when he recalled that during the spring, Elizabeth had been following a webcam set up nearby the nest of a pair of bald eagles in Decorah, Iowa. Checking the cam several times a day, she had watched the parents care for their young and followed the eaglets as they grew and eventually became fledglings, able to fly on their own. So when Vincent found a woman online who created birds from felt and placed them in nests, he was sure that he had found the perfect gift for Elizabeth.

Recalling these memories reinforced Elizabeth's belief that meeting Vincent was a wonderful and enchanting piece of magic. As she thought back, she realized that many magical moments had occurred during their time together. Encountering Vincent on the Internet all those years before was a divine appointment that had opened a door for her to a new life and a host of new experiences in another country. Elizabeth knew their story was special and unique as was their love and commitment to each other. Elizabeth felt her heart overflowing with a feeling of gratitude for Vincent and for all the events that had had to happen for the two of them to be together, living a life of adventure and wonder (even if Elizabeth failed to notice the wonder rather often). “Thank you,” Elizabeth whispered to the Universe and turned her attention to the day ahead.

Copyright © 2011-2012 by Vicky Lynn Macchione.
All Rights Reserved.
No reproduction of this text is allowed without the written permission of the author.

Message Treasures

What message comes through this collage today?

There are words: Treasures--a new life--love every day.

There are images: leaves--circles--spirals--buttons--ribbons--flower--stamp--odds and ends--wings--a partial wisdom face--statue--dragonfly.

There are textures, colors, even a bit of black and white doodling.

What message comes through this collage today?

Love every day is the wisdom I see.
Love every day is the "seed."
Love every day creates growth--a colorful flower from leaves of black and white.
Love every day reveals treasures and a new life that begins in each moment that we. . .

LOVE
EVERY
DAY.

--Vicky Lynn :o)

"Treasures"
Collage Journal Page
Copyright © 2010 by Vicky Lynn Macchione